The Tories arranged almost one royal pardon a WEEK for Northern Ireland convicts over seven years from 1979, Belfast Live can reveal.

Each of them was made under the rule and with the knowledge of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

The astonishing rate dropped to less than one a year after her most trusted Home Secretaries Willie Whitelaw, Leon Brittain and Douglas Hurd left their posts.

Belfast Live understands the vast majority of royal pardons were given to paramilitaries, most of them Republicans.

And they were signed off during the time the UK government was responsible for all policing and criminal justice issues in Northern Ireland.

Mr Hurd, who signed Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly’s mercy letter, and his predecessors, Willie Whitelaw and Leon Brittain, rubber stamped a total of 347 letters of the exceptional measure granting a Royal Prerogative of Mercy from 1979 to 1985 - an average of 49 a year.

Douglas Hurd MP

A total of 657 people were murdered in Northern Ireland by paramilitaries during the same period.

When they left office, the level of RPM letters plummeted to a total of just 16 in the 18 years to 2002.

A source said: “That’s fewer than one a year and much more like the level we should expect for a royal pardon.

“They are terribly difficult to get agreement on. They tend to be given to people who, for example, are terminally ill and have asked for a pardon before they die.

“The idea that an average of 49 a year were handed out like confetti over a seven-year period is astonishing.

“These figures will shock the regular man and woman on the street of Northern Ireland and they should be shocked.

“This is not normal political activity and it seems clear there was a plan afoot under Margaret Thatcher. If it was a plan to bring the Troubles to an end quickly and neatly, it failed.

“It failed horribly and now all these people are running about with royal pardons. It’s staggering.”